“It seems you have me on my knees, Sentinel,” he said, and ran his hands up one leg. My eyes closed instinctively, my head dropping back. I focused on the sensations of his hands on me, those long and skillful fingers provoking as they slipped, one inch at a time, up my thighs. He unclipped one stocking from the delicate lace garter that held it, skimmed the tips of his fingers against me.
I looked down at him. “I’d say you’re tending me again, but I’m not sure that’s accurate.”
He looked up at me, eyes silvered with emotions. “I have no tending in mind, Sentinel. I intend to make you desperate, and leave you breathless.”
As if on cue—as if he mastered my body as well as my House—the breath shuddered out of me.
He slipped down the second stocking, tossed it away as he had the first, and then slipped down the garter, fingers skimming my core. I had to reach out for balance as sensation threatened to topple me.
He rose again, took my hand, placed it against his heart. “This beats for you, eternally.”
I nodded, incapable of words, and slid my hand down his chest and abdomen, then found him rigid with arousal and want. He sucked in a breath.
“Who’s breathless now?” I asked.
His jaw clenched. “Maybe I should be on my knees again.”
I smiled, unzipped his trousers, letting them fall to the floor. The silk boxers he wore beneath did little to camouflage his excitement.
“Turn around,” he said, and I did, pulling my hair back from the bustier he hadn’t yet unfastened. He slipped one hook, then another, tossed the silk away, and pulled me hard against him, his hands roaming from ribs to breasts, cupping and teasing. He bent his head to my neck, teased with kisses and the hint of fangs that he well knew would drive me crazy.
A bit more silk, and we were naked.
“Water,” he said, and helped me into the pool-sized tub.
The water was just shy of scalding, my favorite kind of bath. Lavender steam rose around us, tiny purple buds floating on the fragrant surface.
He stepped in beside me, his long legs rippling the surface of the water. He’d rippled through my life. He sat down and pulled me toward him, long fingers gripped in my hair as he plundered my mouth, taking possession of body and soul. The water lapped my breasts, but I could hide nothing from him. He wouldn’t allow it.
Not that I had anything to hide. He knew me better than anyone, better than everyone. Every inch of my body, every mote of bravery and fear. I wouldn’t claim knowledge of every mote of Ethan’s four hundred years, but I knew the truth of him. I knew the dark and light, understood his secret symphony. He belonged to me as much as I belonged to him.
I settled my body atop his, harbored him, and felt his shuddering response.
“Forever,” he said, the fingers in my hair still strong, still refusing to let go, as if he still needed to bind me to him.
“Forever,” I whispered against his mouth, and rocked against him, the fragrant water lapping our bodies. The rhythm quickened, Ethan moving faster and deeper, teeth and tongue fighting a similar battle above the water, need quickening inside me like a tangible thing, the union of pleasure and pain and desire.
“Go,” he said, and my body responded to the command like a soldier. I gripped his shoulders as my body bowed, contracted, heat and electricity pulsing like a live connection.
“Yes,” he growled, his pride and satisfaction giving texture to the word, so it seemed to sharpen the air. “Forever,” he said as his body contracted, a sound of beautiful agony slipping from his lips.
“Forever,” I said, and put my hands on his cheeks, pressed a soft kiss to his closed eyes, his lips. “Forever.”
• • •
The wedding had been beautiful. The reception had been great fun, at least until chaos had taken her turn with it. Making love for the first time as husband and wife had been sublime.
And later, after love had been shown and proven and we’d wrestled our own demons, as dawn had begun grappling at the horizon with her rose fingers, we were on the bed in clean pajamas, a room service spread between us, and bottles of Blood4You and Veuve Clicquot on ice nearby.
“I understand the food at the reception was divine,” Ethan said, stretched on the bed beside me, scooping caviar onto a toast point. “Not that we had time to enjoy it.”
Not being a fan of fish eggs, I scooped guacamole with a blue corn chip. “No, and I am starving. A wedding and mass mob will do that to a vampire.”
“So I hear. I noticed Jonah and Margot dancing.”
I nodded. “I’m trying to hook them up. I think they’d work well together.”
He glanced up at me. “In my experience, playing matchmaker often backfires.”